Over Two Hours Screen Time Daily will Make Your Kids Impulsive

Nine-11 hours of sleep and no more than two hours of recreational screen time a day is what can save your children from becoming impulsive and make poorer decisions in life, find researchers.

Impulsive behavior is strongly linked to sleep and screen time, found by Healthy Active Living and Obesity Research Group (HALO) at the CHEO Research Institute in Ottawa.

"Impulsive behavior is associated with numerous mental health and addiction problems, including eating disorders, behavioral addictions and substance abuse," said Dr. Michelle Guerrero, lead author at the CHEO Research Institute and University of Ottawa.

The paper, published in the journal Pediatrics, analyzed data for 4,524 children from the first set of data from a large longitudinal population study.

In addition to sleep and screen time, the study also captured data related to physical activity – at least 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise daily.

The ABCD study allowed Guerrero and her team to look at the three pillars of movement guidelines against eight impulsivity measures, such as one's tendency to seek out thrilling experiences, to set desired goals, to respond sensitively to rewarding or unpleasant stimuli, and to act rashly in negative and positive moods.

The results suggested that meeting all three pillars of the movement guidelines was associated with more favorable outcomes on five of the eight dimensions.

Get the best of News18 delivered to your inbox – subscribe to News18 Daybreak. Follow News18.com on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and on YouTube, and stay in the know with what's happening in the world around you – in real time.